Link’s Awakening – Switch Review

As a kid, I loved my Game Boy Colour and I still have it to this day. Despite never managing to finish it, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was one of my favourite titles on the system. It was a gripping puzzle adventure so, on the arrival of a remake, I knew I had to buy it. The 2019 remaster provides a stunning new coat with little in the way of improvements, but it is still the same essential experience that it always was.

The story takes much the same tack as the original – Link, lost at sea, wakes up on a beach on Koholint Island, where an owl sends him to open a giant egg perched atop a mountain (this is one of the weirder instalments in the Zelda series). Inside the egg is the fabled Wind Fish, who has the power to send Link home. The only catch is that Link needs the eight instruments of the Sirens to wake him up, and so he embarks on a quest around the island.

Something that’s immediately obvious from the moment you start playing is how beautiful the game looks. Link has been re-imagined as a cross between a toy and plasticine model, and looks adorable. The world is so bright and vibrant, you’ll want to explore every inch because it looks so impressive (particularly with a remastered score playing over the top). Even the cutscenes have been refashioned as mini cartoons. One benefit of this graphical update is that it mitigates some of the sprite issues in the early games – I never realised, for instance, that the crystals in-game were meant to have popped like balloons.

You will notice some other more minor tweaks that massively improve the experience

The greater Switch power means that Koholint feels more like a place (on the Game Boy, you moved from screen to screen). This makes navigation much easier as is figuring out what to do next. I always found it tricky playing Link’s Awakening because you had to find hidden areas with few hints, so this improvement is much appreciated. I did have a couple of moments when frame rate struggled a little bit, but these were few and far between. The dungeons remain the same screen-to-screen experiences, and they are just as challenging and fun to crack as I remember.

The original game in itself was really good, so care had to be taken not to alter it too much and ruin the experience. The only missing thing that I noticed was the lack of the Camera Shop (because, of course, the Switch is not compatible with the Game Boy Printer), but the experience otherwise seemed identical. There is one major new addition though, the Chamber Dungeons. You can assemble rooms (using parts of dungeons you have beaten) to create a dungeon of your own to battle though – sadly, there is no option for sharing (unless you use Amiibos), and so the experience is a bit more extraneous that it should be.

If you played the original Link’s Awakening, you will notice some other more minor tweaks that massively improve the experience. You are now able to mark the map, for example, and the extra buttons mean that you no longer need to drop your shield to access items. There are a couple more warp points, and a seashell sensor that massively reduces the hassle of finding secret seashells. These are small additions, but the way that they help to augment the game is substantial.

I realise that I am selling this game based massively on my experience of the original, but I want to promise that I am not being unduly influenced by nostalgia – the game is genuinely that good. It is a treat for your eyes and ears, it tests your brain and it is just all-round good fun. Link’s Awakening is an example of how classic games should be remade – taking the best of the original and offering up little tweaks to make the experience even better.